“Power In The Blood”

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I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1, and I announced this morning that I would be preaching on 'Power In The Blood'. We looked at 'The Precedence of the Power of God' this morning, that God's power is the same as it always has been. We looked at that wonderful verse, it's become very precious to me, in Psalm 68 verse 28: 'Summon Your power, O God, show us Your strength as You have done before'. Does that not eat into you, that prayer? I mean, it's wonderful, isn't it? 'Summon Your power, O God, show us Your strength as You have done before'. Make He do it again tonight. It's wonderful, we've been singing about the power that there is in the blood of the Lord Jesus - and I just want us to read one verse, and we will be looking at other scriptures as we go through tonight, but just one verse from Ephesians chapter 1 verse 7. Speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ: "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace".

Let us pray together. As I invited you this morning, I want to ask you to pray for yourself just now. Maybe you're not even a church-goer, or a believer in Jesus Christ, you're not born again, you're not a Christian - I would ask you too: I don't know why you're here, maybe you've been brought along or you're here of your own volition, but whatever the reason you think you're here, I want to challenge you just now to turn your heart heavenward and ask God to speak to you. Maybe you don't even believe in God, that He exists, and that He does speak today. Well let me challenge you, and be challenged: ask the Lord to speak to you tonight. Even say: 'Lord, if You're there' - that's a prayer the Lord can answer - 'If You're there, speak to me', and you will find out He is there, for He will speak to you. If you come tonight with a heart that is open, and those of us who are Christians, who want to hear from God tonight, I believe and trust that the Holy Spirit will bring this truth with a freshness to us all tonight. So let's come ready and expectant to receive from the Lord. Let us pray together. We will pray for each other, but do pray for yourself just now.

A lot of our - for want of a better phrase - 'Christian lingo' can be lost in translation when we are speaking to people in our modern world...

Abba Father, Holy Father, we come to You as our Lord Jesus Christ instructed us to, and we do hallow Your name, and we do pray Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We thank You for the manna that has come down from heaven to us today, and has fed our souls. Lord, we would ask now that we would know the experience of forgiveness of sins, victory over evil, and we would ask for the power and the glory that belongs to You to be shared with us now. We pray that You will give us spiritual eyes to see the Lamb of God freshly slain in the midst of the Throne of Heaven. We believe it is the theme of the angelic throngs and the great redeemed company in heaven now - but, Lord, we pray that along with those spirits of just men made perfect, that we too would have our spirits raised heavenward in that exultant song: 'Unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, unto Him be the glory forever, Amen'. Come into our midst Lord Jesus Christ, come Holy Spirit and minister the Father and the Son, bring enlightenment and illumination to those who are still dead in trespasses and in their sins. Quicken those who are backslidden, Lord, and revive Your church. For the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.

A story that I love and have told many times - you may have heard me tell it yourself - is of a great Parliament of Religions that was held in the city of Chicago in the United States in 1893. Practically every known religion was represented there. During one of the sessions a man by the name of Dr Joseph Cook of Boston, a preacher, stood suddenly. He addressed everyone: 'Gentleman, I beg to introduce to you a woman with a great sorrow. Bloodstains are on her hands, and nothing she has tried will remove them. The blood is that of murder. She has been driven to desperation in her distress. Is there anything in your religions that will remove her sin and give her peace?'. A hush fell on the gathering that day, not one of the company replied. Dr Cook, raising his eyes heavenward, then cried out: 'John!' - meaning the apostle John - 'John, can you tell this woman how to get rid of her awful sin'. The great preacher waited, as if listening for a reply, and suddenly he cried: 'Listen, John speaks!' - and quoting 1 John 1 verse 7 in the Bible, he said, 'The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin'. Not a soul broke the silence. The representatives of the Eastern religions and the Western cults sat dumb. In the face of human need, it was the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone that could meet that need. Only the blood of Jesus shed on the cross at Calvary can erase human sin - and that is the good news of the Gospel that we preach. We read it here in Ephesians 1:7: 'In Him we have redemption', we are bought back from the bondage of our sin, 'through His blood', Jesus' blood, 'the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace'.

Even Christians do not understand the full import and significance of what the blood of Jesus does...

But you might be here tonight, and you really don't understand what all that means. We've got to be real tonight, that a lot of our - for want of a better phrase - 'Christian lingo' can be lost in translation when we are speaking to people in our modern world. Harvey Shaw of Killicomaine Baptist shared with me on one occasion how he was preaching, I think it was a mission in Killicomaine, and he was preaching on being washed in the blood of the Lamb. There was a little elderly lady came out of the meeting at the end, and shook his hand and said: 'Well Sir, I enjoyed the meeting, but I can't think of anything worse than to be washed in blood!'. We've got to face facts that when we talk in this manner, a lot of folk don't understand what we are speaking of. Even Christians do not understand the full import and significance of what the blood of Jesus does, and the power that there is inherent in His shed blood. It is true to say that some people are utterly repulsed by the suggestion that Jesus shed His blood for our sins. So, in the past, the evangelical good news of the Gospel has been called 'a slaughterhouse religion'. We talked a little bit this morning about the foolishness of the message of the cross which we preach, that through the sacrifice or execution of a man 2000 years ago, that our sins could be forgiven. Other people simply are confused, and they turn away in their misunderstanding and are lost because of it.

Well, let me be absolutely simple tonight - the bottom line is: your sin is not pretty. If you haven't discovered that, you're in a bigger problem than you realise. Your sin and your breaking of God's law, the Ten Commandments as an example of God's standard of holiness, it is not pretty in God's eyes. Nor, for that matter, is the penalty of your sin pretty. By the penalty of sin I mean death and judgement, and the Bible calls that 'hell'. So if your sin is not pretty, and the penalty of your sin is not pretty either, you could imagine that the payment for your freedom from sin is not pretty - but it is necessary. The cross was necessary. The blood of Jesus had to be shed. It's like Good Friday, you know, the day we commemorate the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus - I mean, superficially, little seems good about Good Friday. The Son of God was crucified and died in ignominy and great torment! But it is because of the consequences of the cross, which are eternally good, that we call Good Friday 'Good Friday'.

I want you to go away tonight understanding that there is power in the blood of Jesus...

My goal tonight, with the help of the Holy Spirit, is understanding on your part. I want you to go away tonight understanding that there is power in the blood of Jesus, and why there is power in the blood that He shed on the cross. Now, for an accurate understanding, we need to go to the very beginning of the book, we need to go to the book of Genesis which means 'The Beginning'. We see there creation in absolute perfection, no sin, no fallenness or depravity, no wickedness, no violence, no defects. God commanded Adam, the first man, and the first woman, Eve, that of all the trees of the Garden they could freely eat, but of the one tree they were not allowed to eat - the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - for in the day they ate thereof, they would die, for to disobey God was sin and the results would be death. Some of you, I'm sure, know the story that Adam and Eve disobeyed, and they sinned, and in their fallen imaginations they felt shame because of their nakedness, and so God had to cover over their shame. God provided animal skins as a covering, and that necessitated death on the part of the creatures, to give their skins to cover humanity. So there had to be death of an animal to cover Adam and Eve's offensiveness in the sight of God.

Now, what is that teaching us right at the very beginning of the Bible? First of all it's teaching that to approach the Holy God of Heaven, our shame must be covered. You can't just come to God anyway you like. Secondly it teaches us that because God is just, sin must be paid for. You see, a myth that many people believe - particularly young people, it has to be said - is that sin doesn't cost. During the 1960s, those of you who can remember that, one of the slogans was 'free love' - really it meant 'free sex'. But, you know, there is no such a thing as 'free love'. Anybody who has ever loved anyone, or is in love, will know that love costs - you pay a price when you love someone else. But the slogan was 'free love', 'free sex', as if there were no consequences - and I'm telling you now that we are reaping the consequences of the moral disintegration in the 1960s and the sexual revolution in the 21st-century. Sin does cost, common sense teaches us that. Every civilisation that is civilised on the globe, every civilised society is built on the rule of law and order, and consequently a penal system so that if you break the rules and you're caught, you're punished. The Holy God of Heaven, the Just, Righteous God of Heaven, has got laws - do you expect Him not to enforce them?

To approach the Holy God of Heaven, our shame must be covered. Because God is just, sin must be paid for. Thirdly, we are taught right at the beginning of time that if we don't pay ourselves, or for that matter if we can't pay the penalty ourselves, someone will have to in order for us to go free. Now all that is being taught at the very beginning of time: Adam and Eve sinned, and animals have to die for their nakedness and shame to be covered. Come with me further in the record of the history of humankind. We come to Adam and Eve's two sons, Cain and Abel - I'm sure you've heard of those. Cain was a tiller of the ground, he was a farmer; and Abel was a shepherd. We read that they brought an offering to God one day, and Cain brought an offering really of the sweat of his brow, vegetables and fruit of the earth; but Abel, we read, brought a lamb, a sacrificial lamb. The Bible has on record that God accepted Abel's offering but rejected Cain's. 'Why was that?', you say. Well, very simply, Cain's was a deathless offering, Cain's was a bloodless offering.

Maybe you're scratching your head, and you're saying: 'But why does there have to be all this death? Why does God require bloodshed?'...

Now maybe you're scratching your head, and you're saying: 'But why does there have to be all this death? Why does God require bloodshed?'. Listen: death is the consequence of sin. When Adam sinned in the garden, he died spiritually - and 'death' simply means 'separation', his spirit was cut off in communication with God; but right in the Garden at that moment he began to die physically. So the penalty that must be paid for sin is death. The book of Romans tells us, 'The wages of sin is death'. Death is the debt all must pay for sin. The payment to free us from sin must be paid in kind, a life for a life. Blood must be shed not only to show death, but the Bible says that 'the life of the flesh is in the blood' - there is something special about human blood in that sense.

So that is really the origination of what we know as the sacrificial system in the Old Testament. For years, thousands of years, there was a flowing river of constant bloodshed in order to cover over the sins of Israel and Judah. A very famous incident in the Old Testament is the Passover. Of course, the Jews still celebrate the Passover today. To save Israel from the bondage of Egypt, just like God wants to save us all from the slavery of sin, God instructed them to take a lamb - one lamb for each household - a lamb of a year old without any defect, spot, or blemish. Israel, each household, was to slaughter that lamb at twilight, and pour the blood of the lamb into a basin. They were to take a herb called hyssop like a paintbrush, and paint the blood on the door posts and the lintel of their house. God said that that night the death angel would go through Egypt and would slay the firstborn of every house, but God said: 'When I see the blood, I will pass over you'. It literally means, if you look at it closely, God said: 'When I see the blood on your door posts and lintel, I will hover over the door, I will stand in front of your door and protect you from the death angel'. That night all the firstborn in Egypt were slain, but all the Israelites escaped, those who had the blood of the lamb on the door posts and lintel. They went out that very night, and they crossed the Red Sea - you know that great miracle, Moses lifted up his staff and the seas parted - and they walked into the Promised Land, effectively, to freedom.

What is that teaching us? It's teaching us that an innocent, pure sacrifice is the only one that is acceptable to God. It's teaching us that we can't pay our own way. Would you agree that we have a lot of problems against us as humankind in God's sight? Can I recap for you? To approach the Holy God of Heaven, our shame must be covered, but just at the moment it is naked to God and to yourself if you're not a Christian. Secondly, we are being taught that because God is just and holy, sin must be paid for. We're finding out that if we can't pay it ourselves, someone has to in order for us to be free - and it needs to be an innocent, pure sacrifice, that's the only one that is acceptable to God.

Let me take you forward in time again. This time travel with me to Bethabara beyond Jordan. John the Baptist has been baptising people for the repentance of their sins. John sees this Man, Jesus of Nazareth, and he cries out with a loud voice: 'Behold! Look! See the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'. What does that mean? Well, here's exactly what it means: all these many Old Testament sacrifices were pictures, were signposts that were pointing forward to the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. We know this because the Israelites and Judah had to keep repeating these sacrifices continually just to momentarily cover over their sin, but Jesus, the Lamb of God, would take away the sin of the world forever.

All these many Old Testament sacrifices were signposts that were pointing forward to the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world...

The word 'Atonement' means 'to cover', and I'm led to believe by those who know more than me in the biblical languages that the actual Old Testament word for 'Atonement' does not appear in the New Testament. There are words like it, but the actual word does not appear. I believe the reason for that is that God's intention was never to simply cover over our sin, He sent His only Son as the Lamb of God to take away sin forever! Isn't that wonderful?

Would you look with me at Hebrews 10 if you have a Bible, if you don't someone might share with you or you can just listen, Hebrews 10 verses 11 and 12: 'And every priest', this is thinking of the Old Testament, the way they did these sacrifices, 'Every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God'. Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

I want to ask you tonight: have you considered how the blood of Jesus was shed to take away your sin? The most important day in the Jewish faith is a day called Yom Kippur, it is the Day of Atonement. On that day alone, the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the sacrifices that covered the sins of Israel for one year only - no more than one year. A very interesting verse is found in Leviticus 16:14, and it says this, listen: the High Priest took the blood of that sacrifice and he sprinkled it with his finger on the mercy seat, that's the Ark of the Covenant, that's the place where the sacrificial blood was to cover the sins of Israel for the year. Seven times the High Priest would sprinkle the blood of the bull sacrifice - seven in the Bible is the number of perfection, it's the number of completeness of the Holy Spirit's work - but do you know that Jesus Christ completely fulfilled this prophetic picture when He died for us? Did you know that His blood was shed precisely seven times before His sacrifice was completed?

Come with me to the Garden of Gethsemane. There He is being in agony, praying, contemplating what He would have to face, the cup that He would have to drink that His Father was giving Him of your sin and mine, the penalty for our sin, the hell and the judgement for our guilt and shame. The Bible tells us that He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground. His sweat became blood. The second time we read of His bloodshed is when the Roman soldiers struck Him in the face with their fists and with rods, they smote Him. Thirdly, we read that they flogged Him with a Roman scourge. It was a whip a bit like the old cat-of-nine-tails with leather thongs on it, and embedded within the leather thongs there were pieces of iron and broken bone. As they whipped His back, it would lift a piece of flesh and peel it the whole way down, so that the Bible says - prophetically - His back was like a ploughed field. Fourthly, we read that His beard was pulled out of His face. The soldiers grasped great clumps of hair, and pulled them from His cheeks. Fifth, we read that thorns were pressed deep onto His scalp. They plaited a crown of thorns, not like the thorns of your garden, but Jerusalem thorns a number of inches long - and they pushed it onto His brow, and they further smote it home with a reed. The sixth time His blood was shed, we read that they spread Him eagle-wide on the cross, and they pierced His hands and His feet with nails. These were square, rusty, Roman nails, and they hammered them through His limbs and into the wood of the cross. Seventhly we read that when He gave up the ghost, the Roman centurion took the spear and pierced His side, and forthwith came blood and water. Seven times the blood of Jesus was shed, and you know what was happening? This was the sacrifice - not just to cover our sins, but to completely remove them forever.

Do you understand the price of your redemption? What it cost God and His Son to take your sin away forever?

I want to ask you tonight: do you understand the price of your redemption? What it cost God and His Son to take your sin away forever? How the blood of Jesus was shed for you? What does that mean to you? Does it mean anything to you that Jesus Christ and God the Father went to such lengths that you might be set free from your guilt and shame? Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

In order to come into the good of what Jesus did for you on the cross you need to take it. If you like, you need to take it from the blood bank of God's provided redemption, and you need to get that blood-power into your life. 'How do you do that?', you say. Well, a bit like the Israelites, on the Passover evening they were commanded to take that herb, hyssop, just like a painting brush, and paint the blood on the door posts and the lintel of their home. If the blood stayed in the basin, well, it was no use to any Israelite just lying in the basin. It had to be taken by the hyssop, and it had to be applied to their home. I want to tell you tonight: just because Jesus died on the cross at Calvary, and even because He died for sinners, does not mean that you are saved! A lot of people in our country have been in church today, and they believe that Jesus died for them, but they have never taken the hyssop, they have never applied the blood of Christ to their life personally - have you? Do you know what this hyssop herb is like? It's like faith, or the confession of faith, where we take the blood and we say: 'Lord Jesus Christ, I am trusting You, Your sacrifice, Your shed blood to cleanse me from all my sin'. You see, your faith must lay hold of the sacrifice. Have you done that? Has there been a time in your life when you realised Jesus died for you?

I was preaching in Wales two years ago, and there was a Chinese man from Hong Kong who was now living in Wales - and if you closed your eyes he was as Welsh as any of them! Imagine this wee Chinese man, broad Welsh, and he told me his testimony. He said: 'Do you know how I was converted, David? I was a lay preacher in the Anglican Church in Hong Kong. One Easter Sunday I was standing in the pulpit delivering the sermon, and for the first time in my life I realised that Jesus died for me' - that's what it's about. In his own pulpit he was converted, by the grace of God, because he made it personal by faith! You need to take it! You need to take it tonight! It's not enough to be brought up in a Christian home, or a so-called Christian society, you need to have personal faith in Jesus Christ yourself!

It's repentant faith that takes the blood and applies it to your life...

I have to tell you tonight that it's repentant faith that takes the blood and applies it to your life. What is repentance? Well, it's turning from sin, it's changing your mind about sin and turning your heart toward God for salvation. I need to say that, because some people want to be free from death and hell - they don't like the judgement bit - but they want to hold onto their sin, they want to continue to live in sin! If that's you tonight, you need to know that it was sin that cost the Saviour His own blood, it cost Him His life!

The Passover is a very interesting feast. Just before it, for seven days before they celebrated the Passover - they still do this - they had to clean their house of all leaven. Do you know what leaven is? It makes the bread rise. They were only allowed to eat unleavened bread at Passover, but seven days up to the feast they had to clear out all leaven out of the house, because leaven is a picture of sin in the Bible. But they were to leave just a little clump of leaven in the house for the night before Passover, and the little boy would go throughout the house and he would find the little clump of leaven, and he would call father. Father would come and put the leaven on a wooden spoon, and take it out of the house, wrap it in a napkin, and burn the napkin - a linen napkin. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, went to Calvary to bear our hell, our burning judgement for our sin; and He was wrapped in a linen napkin, the Bible says, and laid in a tomb - because not only was He suffering for our sins, He was carrying them away forever.

You can't get a kick out of your sin, and get free from it at the same time. Christians, that applies to you. Turn with me quickly to 1 Corinthians 5, and remember Paul is writing to Christians. Verse 7 of 1 Corinthians 5: 'Therefore purge out the old leaven', there's the imagery, 'purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump', of dough, 'since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover' - there it is, He is our Passover Lamb - 'was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth'. Christian: you ought not to continue in sin that grace may abound, that's not the way it works. First John 1 verse 7 says: 'If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin' - and there's a tremendous principle: the blood only operates effectively in the light. It is an evangelical modern myth that you are under the protection of God when you are habitually, consciously engaging in wilful sin. I'm not saying you can't be saved, but I'm saying you're not under God's protection.

I might be confusing some of you tonight. Oh yes, there is perfect protection beneath the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ - but it was conditioned at the Passover, wasn't it? What was it conditioned on? Obedience. You can paint the blood on the door posts and the lintel, but if you don't stay under the blood in the house the death angel would get you! There's protection and there is power in the blood, but there is a requirement of obedience if you want that protection. A lot of modern day Christians are going through life thinking that the devil cannot touch them because they're born again, and you need to waken up if you're dabbling in sin and living like that! Obedience is the condition of the protection of the blood - 'If we walk in the light'.

I have to tell you, Christians, that a lot of folk don't realise why they are entangled and they're not going on in their Christian life...

I had the privilege of counselling a man in prayer a couple of months ago who was a professing Christian, and for a long time he hadn't been walking with the Lord. Yet he believed he was truly a Christian, saved, born again. Due to a relationship he was in, he was taken along to what he thought was like a ghost tour around a town, and they would tell ghost stories - but he didn't realise the depth of occult that he was going to be exposed to, I think it was like a seance or something. He went into this house and they began to do whatever they do, and instead of walking away and turning his back and running, he decided that he would challenge the devil. He said: 'You cannot touch me, for I am under the blood'. I'm not going to breach confidentialities or anything like that, and I have his permission to share this story - but, save to say that he had untold demonic problems from that time on. That's probably going to bamboozle some of you, that Christians could have demonic problems - but they do, they do. I had to tell that man: 'Do you know what your mistake was? You were not under the blood! You were not protected by the blood! You were presuming, you were testing the Lord, because the condition of protection under the blood is obedience - and you were being disobedient, not only in your prior living, but in that very act of being where you were, doing what you were doing'.

I have to tell you, Christians, that a lot of folk don't realise why they are entangled and they're not going on in their Christian life. They believe the evangelical jargon about - you know - you're saved, and you're on your way to heaven, and you've got all the promises of God, you've got everything of God that you need, and everything is wonderful. You've arrived and you've made it! But you know deep down that that's not the way it is at all. Maybe you're here tonight, and you've been entangled by all sorts of sins, and wilful behaviours and engagements, where you've given rights over to the enemy, and you wonder why you're not free tonight, why you're in bondage! You need to realise: there is a condition of walking in the freedom of the cleansing and the power of the blood - walk in the light. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness - but the blood will not cover what you will not uncover, what you will not bring into the light.

I must also bring a warning to you tonight if you're not a Christian. In that Passover picture, they took the hyssop and they dipped it in a basin of blood, they painted the blood on the door posts and the lintel, but you will notice that they did not paint the threshold of the door - they did not paint the doorstep with the blood of the lamb. Do you know why? Look at Hebrews chapter 10 again with me, Hebrews 10 verse 26: 'For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins' - do you know what that means? God covers our mistakes, but He never covers our rebellion. If you wilfully rebel against God, and are rebelling against God, and have not confessed it - that is a sin that you will have to answer to God for one day, standing before Him. 'If we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins', but look at this, 'but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses' - that's the Old Testament law, if you broke it you died, that was the penalty where there were two or three witnesses. That's the Old covenant, but what of the New Testament? Look at verse 29: 'Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay' says the Lord. And again, 'The LORD will judge His people'. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God'.

Believers here tonight, do you know you were bought with a price? You are not your own!

That sends a shiver up my spine. Listen to what I'm going to say now, especially if you've been brought up in a Christian home, or you're a backslider here tonight - as we call them - don't you ever walk over the blood of Jesus Christ! Maybe you've already done that tonight? You're in a precarious, fearful position. That's why the blood was not on the doorstep, was not on the threshold. Praise God for the power that is in the blood, there is wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb: sins cleansed, redemption, set free - but let us never take it for granted! Believers here tonight, do you know you were bought with a price? You are not your own! You know, it wasn't just your spirit that was bought with the blood of Jesus to take you to heaven when you die, but you can live the rest of your life, soul and body, mind, emotion, and will for yourself - no! The Israelites were redeemed, body, soul, and spirit - and so are you! All of you!

Are you struggling tonight, as a professing believer, with the world, with your own fallen, depraved flesh, with the devil himself. I want to encourage, I want to challenge you tonight to take your stand firm in the faith, submit yourself unto God tonight - will you do that? Will you confess your sin? Will you take your standing under the Lordship of Jesus and surrender all that you are and all that you have to Him, spirit, soul, and body for Him to have His way in your life? Will you repent of those sins? Will you renounce them? Will you ask the Lord to cleanse you and set you free from them? Will you ask Him to come and fill you and possess you with His divine power that has been bought with the precious blood of Christ?

I believe that there is a unique power in declaring with our mouth, audibly with our mouth, what the blood of Jesus does for us as Christians. The Bible says confession is with the mouth. In Revelation chapter 12 and verse 11, we read there that they overcame him, that is the devil, by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony - I believe that means the confession of what the blood of the Lamb does for us. Psalm 107 and verse 2 says: 'Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy'. I want us to do something here tonight. The guys are going to put on the screen just one slide, and I do trust you can read this - my apologies if it's too small - but this is a declaration by a man called Derek Prince who has a little book of proclamations. This is his proclamation of what the blood of Jesus does for us. Now if you're here tonight, and you're not a Christian, you know what you need to do right now - and we're going to do it. You need to repent of your sins and believe the Gospel. But if you are a Christian and you're struggling, or you just want to make a fresh affirmation of what the blood of Jesus has done for you, or you want to overcome the enemy in your life as he is coming against you, will you make this proclamation with me?

I believe that there is a unique power in declaring audibly with our mouth, what the blood of Jesus does for us as Christians...

Let's pray first of all for those who are not a Christian, let's pray - just pray with me if you want to come to Christ tonight, just pray these words. They aren't magic words, you've got to mean them by faith in your heart. Come now and say, repeat these words: 'O God, I come to You in the name of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I confess my sins before You, and I repent of all my sin. I ask You to cleanse me through the blood of the Lord Jesus, and set me free from my sin. I renounce Satan and all his works, and I ask You to be Lord and Saviour of my life. Come now and fill me with Your blessed Holy Spirit as I give You all that I am now. In Jesus' name, Amen'.

Let's stand together and say this declaration, do say it audibly and say it confidently as we stand to our feet. Let me read through it so that you know what you're saying tonight, and follow with me - just listen as I read it: 'Through the blood of Jesus, I am redeemed out of the hand of the devil. Through the blood of Jesus, all my sins are forgiven. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, continually cleanses me from all sin. Through the blood of Jesus, I am justified, made righteous, just-as-if-I'd never sinned'. Isn't that wonderful? Are you out there? Romans 5:9 says: 'Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him' - it's just as if you'd never sinned! You mustn't have sinned the way I've sinned, for that's magnificent! 'Through the blood of Jesus, I am sanctified, made holy, set apart to God'. That's how you get holy, through the power of the blood, and through the power of the Spirit - not pulling yourself up by your own bootlaces. Hebrews 13:12: 'Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate' - He sanctifies us by His blood. 'My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, redeemed, cleansed by the blood of Jesus'. First Corinthians 6:19-20: 'Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's'.

Will you say it with me, if you're a believer in Christ what would stop you? Say it out loud, let the devil hear it, and let God know that you believe it. Testify to Satan personally now of what the word of God says the blood of Jesus does for me. Let's go through it, say it with me now, all together: 'Through the blood of Jesus, I am redeemed out of the hand of the devil. Through the blood of Jesus, all my sins are forgiven. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, continually cleanses me from all sin. Through the blood of Jesus, I am justified, made righteous, just-as-if-I'd never sinned. Through the blood of Jesus, I am sanctified, made holy, set apart to God. My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, redeemed, cleansed by the blood of Jesus'.

Father, we pray tonight that Satan would have no place in any of us, no power over us, through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. May sin not reign in our mortal members, to obey the lusts thereof. May we not give ourselves over to the flesh, but Lord we pray tonight - spirit, soul, and body - that every human being in this company tonight may be set free, loosed from their sins in the blood of the Lamb. Lord Jesus, we thank You tonight for Your passion, for Your great love, for what You endured, for the shedding of Your blood that we might be clean. We thank You, Father, that the third day You raised the Lord Jesus from the grave. We thank You that He is seated at Your right hand in Heaven, and He has given the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. May He have full reign in all our lives tonight, even as we have declared this evening, by faith, what the blood does - that people would be set free in the midst. Now, Lord, may we go with a spring in our step and a joy in our heart, knowing that there is power in the blood! Amen.

This sermon was delivered at Portadown Baptist Church, Northern Ireland, by David Legge. It was transcribed from the recording, titled "Power In The Blood" - Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word.

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About Preach The Word

'Preach The Word' is a not-for-profit Christian ministry which exists to provide sound Bible teaching to all. In days when many are disillusioned and seeking for more, through the ministry of David Legge we seek to provide Bible-based teaching and preaching which will lead you into a deeper relationship with God.